Brown, Dale - Independent 01

by Silver Tower (v1. 1)

  Plutarsky couldn’t believe the carnage around him. Only a few seconds before it had been a peaceful, quiet, rainy morning in Iran. Now, after one explosion, it was a burning nightmare. Had he been unconscious? He rested for a minute on his hands and knees until he heard footsteps nearby.

  He raised his head and saw five men running toward the town of Robat, their arms full of M-16 rifles, ammo boxes, cases of rations and desert combat jackets. Plutarsky got to his feet and pulled his Beretta.

  “Halt. Stop.” His voice barely sounded over the background noises of out-of-control fires and men calling and yelling, but all five of the running men stopped and turned toward him. They were Iranian revolutionary guards.

  “Where the hell do you think you’re going with—?”

  Plutarsky stopped, felt a piece of metal touch his left temple and turned to find First Captain Shurab holding the muzzle of an M-16 rifle in his face.

  “Hello, Sergeant Polack.”

  There was a brief show of fear in Plutarsky’s eyes, which pleased Shurab; then the fear was replaced with anger.

  “Going somewhere?” Plutarsky said.

  “It is insult for elite Muslim heroes to work like dogs for Polack inferiors. I am taking weapons and supplies to mountains. I will fight Soviets without American missiles.” He started to back away from Plutarsky.

  “You’d better pull the trigger, raghead,” Plutarsky said, now looking directly into Shurab’s eyes, “’cause otherwise I'm going to track you down, skin your deserter hide and feed your carcass to the dogs.”

  Shurab stopped and shrugged. “All right, Sergeant.”

  Plutarsky saw a flash of white light, felt a red-hot tongue of flame strike his face. Then nothing.

  Marshal Govorov had predicted the fall of Bandar-Abbas would take two days. It took six. But the fall of the principal Iranian military stronghold guarding the Strait of Hormuz was now a certainty.

  Only ten of the forty AS-6 Kingfish cruise missiles that had been launched against the twelve outer American rapid deployment force SAM emplacements north of Bandar-Abbas reached their targets, but the ten that had hit had devastated the area defenses. The whole Meydan Valley lay open as two of the three CAB missile sites protecting the valley were destroyed, and Soviet Backfire bombers rushed through the new opening. Carrying AS-6 cruise missiles themselves, as well as gravity bombs, the faster ground-hugging turbojet bombers quickly destroyed the fourteen I-Hawk missile batteries surrounding Bandar-Abbas. In two days Bandar-Abbas and the Strait of Hormuz lay completely unprotected.

  Transport aircraft filled with elite Soviet army shock troops then flew unmolested down the Meydan Valley and landed on the outskirts of Bandar-Abbas. After four days of fierce combat, with a full division of Soviet troops massing around them, the rapid deployment force troops evacuated Bandar-Abbas. With no land-based support left to them, the few American naval vessels in the southern Persian Gulf and in the Strait of Hormuz retreated to the protection of the Nimitz battle group, which in turn, because of a lack of shore support and increased AS-6 cruise-missile attacks, pulled back to the Gulf of Oman, nearly two hundred miles southeast of Bandar-Abbas. The Nimitz still controlled the Strait of Hormuz through the Gulf of Oman, but it was a shaky grip.

  With unprecedented speed the drive to occupy Iran moved to completion. Armed opposition was sporadic: as in Afghanistan, opposition forces were run mostly by rival families or religious sects that fought with each other more than they fought the Soviet invaders. A few chemical weapon attacks against the natives in the mountains and central highlands were reported, but for the most part the Iranian people in the urban areas simply decided to follow the new government rather than risk being wiped out by the Soviets. To the Iranian people there was little difference between the rival factions: both retained their fundamental Islamic foundations; one was supported by the Soviet Union, the other by the United States. For now the Soviets had the upper hand, so the people lined up with the winning side.

  The result was that a new government quickly installed itself in Tehran. To no one’s surprise the new nation of Allah-al-Kastan, the Islamic Nation of God, was immediately recognized by the Soviet Union, but to everyone’s surprise Syria and Iraq formally recognized the new government and suggested entering into negotiations to unify their countries under the laws of Islam. The long Iran-Iraq war came to an end, and representatives of the two governments signed a peace treaty soon afterward. Many other nations, not wanting a continuation of hostilities, also recognized the new government. ...

  The Soviet invasion and takeover of Iran was complete, but the conflict was not over. The world watched as slowly, inexorably, the huge Arkhangel carrier battle group departed Cam Rahn Bay, Vietnam, bound for the Persian Gulf. The Brezhnev carrier group dominated the Persian Gulf, but it could not safely dock at any port in the gulf for fear of guerrilla or commando attack, nor, thanks to the Nimitz, could any replacement ships pass through the American blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman.

  The world knew that the Arkhangel was coming to break the blockade, once and for all.

  HEADQUARTERS, FALCON SPACE COMMAND BASE, COLORADO

  The meeting of Space Command officers and crewmen was called to attention as General Martin Stuart, commander of the Space Command, entered the small conference room. Under more normal circumstances, Stuart would have told everyone to be seated immediately, but this time he was silent. He took his seat at the head of the oval conference table, and motioned for the others to do likewise, remaining silent as the room quieted down.

  Jason Saint-Michael sat alone, on the left side of the table from Stuart, as if he represented some sort of contagion. Dr. Matsui, his flight surgeon, sat behind him, almost as if disassociating himself from his patient.

  Across from Saint-Michael sat a small group of Space Command officers. Ann Page was among them, seated alongside shuttle mission specialist Captain Marty Schultz. Schultz’s customary youthful grin was gone. Ann looked uneasily, almost furtively, from General Stuart and back to Saint-Michael.

  “All right,” Stuart began, “we’re here to select a crew to return to Armstrong Station on the spaceplane America, recover the bodies of the dead crewmen, then detach the Skybolt module from the station and attach a PAM payload booster to it and send it to a higher storage orbit until it can be retrieved via shuttle. This sortie must be accomplished within the next eight days, before Armstrong reenters earth’s atmosphere. Let’s get started.” Stuart opened four folders on the desk in front of him, scanned them, but returned his attention to Jason Saint-Michael. “You’re recommending these crewmen for the rescue sortie, General?”

  “Yes, sir.” Saint-Michael nodded to the most senior officer across the table from him. “Colonel Jonathan Hampton is the only choice as pilot. He’s the senior hypersonic transportation system pilot in the command besides myself.” He even spelled out HTS for them. “Only two sorties aboard America and one station docking, but one year as operations officer of the HTS cadre and one year as a simulator instructor at Little Rock.. .Major Ken Horvath as first officer was a choice among many qualified people. He topped out best in examination and simulator scores of all recent HTS-school graduates.... Captain Schultz was again the only real choice of all volunteers for this trip. He’s qualified both as an HTS and shuttle-flight engineer and payload specialist. He also had a special claim for being included on this flight: he crewed with Colonels Will and Sontag aboard Enterprise for most of his career....”

  “Can you give me your assurance, Captain Schultz,” General Stuart said, “that the... personal nature of this duty won’t affect your performance?”

  “I’ll tell you what I told General Saint-Michael, sir. I feel like I have a duty to Colonel Will and Colonel Sontag to fly this mission. I demand the opportunity to do it.”

  Stuart nodded, looked again to Saint-Michael.

  “Of course, General, Dr. Ann Page here is the best qualified for the... other task on this sortie.”
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  Stuart folded his hands on Ann’s personnel file and shook his head. “I disagree, Jason. Dr. Page has gone through enough already. I don’t see any need to put her through—”

  “Excuse me, sir,” Ann said, “you’re talking about me as if I weren’t here. The fact is, you have no alternative. I happen to be best qualified to handle Skybolt, and I’m the only person familiar with the laser who is qualified for space flight. I’m also a volunteer—”

  “I question that more than anything else,” Stuart broke in. “Do you think it’s wise to cause your family more worry after what they went through two months ago? The Armstrong attack, your father’s death....”

  “General, I don’t want to be a bore, and I think you know I’m no radical feminist or whatever, but such considerations really are no more relevant for me than for any of the men. But I should tell you, my only family is my mother, and she’s in full agreement with me.” Feeling warmed up, Ann kept going. “The thing both of us have a hard time accepting is the way this country is being affected by threats from the Soviets. How can they tell us when to retrieve our own dead? How can they tell us we can only use an HTS spaceplane instead of a shuttle to approach Armstrong Station?”

  “They have the capability to intercept any spacecraft they feel is hostile,” Stuart said. ‘That’s a fact. A shuttle sortie to Armstrong could be seen as an attempt by us to rearm the station, for all they know with offensive nuclear weapons. A spaceplane doesn’t have the cargo capacity to—”

  “So why don’t we tell them that if they shoot down any more unarmed American spacecraft we’ll... retaliate?... Why are we being pushed around by—”

  “Ann” Saint-Michael said, giving her a look. She turned to him, asking with her eyes why he was silencing her. He tried to signal back that the argument was going to be made, and soon.

  “The decision has already been made,” Stuart said, stifling his irritation and surprise. Dr. Page was obviously more than a lady scientist. “Our government has decided it is not going to risk a nuclear confrontation over Armstrong Space Station. I’m sorry. There are three other private commercial and government research space stations in orbit that need servicing. If we challenge the Soviets on Armstrong, which as you know is badly damaged, and only a few days from reentering the atmosphere, they could shut off all sorties to the other stations.”

  Ann was about to respond by pointing out that it never paid to give in to blackmailers but thought better of it. The real issue here was her involvement in the flight. “All right, General. So we use the HTS. We play the game by the Russians’ rules. But please... no one touches Skybolt but me. It may sound arrogant to say so, but there’s no other mission payload specialist qualified to detach Skybolt from the station and attach the payload assist module to it. Remember, Skybolt is a free-electron laser. It uses a controlled nuclear reaction to create the electron-particle stream necessary for lasing. There’s just too much to know about fissionable materials and triggering devices to make it safe for anyone but me to do it.”

  Stuart looked steadily at her, finally nodded, more in grudging acceptance than approval. “All right, the crew list is approved as presented. The sortie is scheduled to depart in four days. That will give you three days to recover the crewmen, detach the Skybolt module, attach the PAM, and boost it into its storage orbit. Any difficulties with that rough itinerary?”

  “I have a problem with the setup, sir,” Saint-Michael said.

  General Stuart had been steeling himself for this. “I told you that I’d listen to your arguments during this meeting, Jason. I don’t know what good it will do, but I’ll take your recommendations to the Pentagon and even see to it that they get to the president. But I don’t think—”

  “Ann was right, sir,” Saint-Michael began in a rush, trying to provoke Stuart into listening. “We are giving in to blackmail—or, more accurately, to terrorism. We can’t let Silver Tower be destroyed. We have got to reactivate the station, put it back into its earth surveillance orbit and repair its systems as soon as possible—”

  “You’re suggesting putting it back into the orbit over the Persian Gulf?” Stuart asked. He shook his head as if he hadn’t heard Saint- Michael correctly. “You want to put Armstrong over that laser again? Put it in an orbit where the Soviets can accurately track it and send killer satellites to engage it? That’s crazy, Jason. Why?” Privately Stuart thought he knew why: Jason was still far from a well man. His doctor was with him and obviously didn’t approve his getting involved. ...

  “Because the station’s SBR and sensors will be needed in a few days. It will take the Arkhangel carrier battle group ten days to reach the Arabian Sea within striking distance of the Nimitz. The SBR has to be up and running before that. ”

  “But the Soviet’s laser—”

  “The laser at Sary Shegan was hardly effective against the station,” Saint-Michael interrupted. “True, we suffered some damage, but the station was still operational. If the laser had been any more powerful we would have been out of business long before the spaceplane attack___ Sir, the SBR has proved its value. It will be needed more than ever if the Nimitz carrier group is cornered in the Gulf of Oman. They’ll have their hands full watching the Arkhangel and her escorts, and if they get driven closer and closer to land the Soviets can engage with land-based missiles. They’ll need our SBR to protect them.” He paused for a moment. “And Skybolt as well.”

  “Skybolt?” Stuart asked. “What has Skybolt got to do with it?”

  “Skybolt is operational, General,” Ann put in quickly. As Stuart’s face went from surprised to skeptical, she hurried on: “It’s working again, sir. I managed to repair it just as the Gorgon missile attack was beginning.” She paused for a moment, then added. “And I shot down the second Soviet spaceplane with the laser.”

  “What?” Stuart turned on Saint-Michael, who was studying Ann before meeting his commander’s surprised expression.

  “I can’t verify that, sir. I was in the command module during the attack, and all power had been lost. We were getting nailed by those spaceplanes—I couldn’t tell if the sounds were from the MHD reactor or from the Soviet missiles.”

  “Well, damn it, I showed a solid lock-on to one of the spaceplanes attacking us, and a solid data link between Skybolt and SBR,” Ann said. “The Soviets reported losing one of their spaceplanes during the attack—doesn’t that prove it works?”

  “Not necessarily,” Stuart said. “The Soviets claim we shot one of the Thor missiles at the spaceplane.... That was the provocation for their attack. They said nothing about the laser.”

  “That definitely is not true,” Saint-Michael said. “All of the garaged Thor missiles were expended during the Gorgon missile attacks. Baker and Yemana detached only two Thors from the ten spares; one missed, the other was never fired. There are eight Thors still on board.”

  “And I tell you, sir, with respect, Skybolt works,” Ann said. “It destroyed that spaceplane. I believe that the laser can protect Armstrong Station from spaceplane attack, and it can protect the Nimitz from any more of those AS-6 cruise-missile attacks too.”

  “Impossible. Shoot hundreds of miles through the atmosphere and destroy a cruise missile? You’ve only had one operational test of Skybolt, and until shown otherwise, it failed. Now you’re saying it can protect a fleet of ships hundreds of miles away?” Stuart shook his head. “I know how committed you are to your project, Dr. Page, but all this sounds too far-fetched—”

  “If the SBR can track it, Skybolt can hit it,” Ann pressed. “With the laser guided by the SBR and the MHD running at full power, it has the power to shoot through a thousand miles of atmosphere and destroy its target. I don’t believe an AS-6 is armored well enough to take a laser burst, even attenuated by the atmosphere.”

  General Stuart stared at a coffee mug ring on his otherwise polished oak conference table without really noticing it.

  “Armstrong Station can survive,” Saint-Michael said .“We don’
t have to bum thirty billion dollars worth of hardware up in the atmosphere. If the Russians decide to go all out, Silver Tower’s SBR could be critical.”

  Stuart finally looked up. “All right, Jason, I’ll take your recommendation to the Joint Chiefs tonight and ask that it be presented to the president tomorrow. That’ll leave him three days to make his decision.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Saint-Michael knew he couldn’t count on Stuart to state his case as strongly as he would want. He just hoped the president would see the logic of reactivating the station. Well, one thing was sure: If the plan was approved, he was going to be part of it. Better start pitching now.... “General, if we get the green light I want to pilot America ”

  Stuart immediately shook his head. “No way, Jason. You’re grounded. Hampton is still the pilot, no matter what the man decides.”

  “Sir, you don’t have any choice on this one. If the plan is authorized you’ll need a station commander on Armstrong—someone who’s checked out on SBR and all of the station’s subsystems. Hampton’s the best HTS jockey we have, but he’s not a station commander.”

  “Jason”—Stuart’s patience was wearing thin—“all we need is someone to keep things together until the station gets reoriented—”

  “That someone would have to take the first officer’s place aboard America, leaving Hampton with the job of putting the HTS into orbit by himself. He’s good, but he’s not that good.”

  “If it came to that, Jason, I’m sure we could rig up a makeshift seat for the extra crewmember. I’m still not convinced you’re essential.”

  “Sir, nobody knows that station better than I do.”

  “What about your dysbarism, sir?” Horvath asked, fearing he might lose his chance at his first real ride in the hypersonic spaceplane America. “What if your episodes recur in space?”